Hip Hoe to Hip HoPe: Hip Hop Pedagogy in a Secondary Language Arts Curriculum

Transcription

1 Hip Hoe to Hip HoPe: Hip Hop Pedagogy in a Secondary Language Arts Curriculum by Phong Kuoch M.A. (Education), Simon Fraser University, 2005 B.A. (English), Simon Fraser University, 1998 Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Curriculum Theory and Implementation Program Faculty of Education Phong Kuoch 2013 SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY Fall 2013

2 Approval Name: Degree: Title of Thesis: Examining Committee: Phong Kuoch Doctor of Philosophy Hip Hoe to Hip HoPe: Hip Hop Pedagogy in a Secondary Language Arts Curriculum Chair: Kumari Beck Assistant Professor Diane Dagenais Senior Supervisor Professor Ann Chinnery Committee Member Associate Professor Kelleen Toohey Committee Member Professor Susan O Neill Internal/External Examiner Associate Professor Faculty of Education Awad Ibrahim External Examiner Professor, Faculty of Education University of Ottawa Date Defended/Approved: September 10, 2013 ii

3 Partial Copyright Licence iii

4 Ethics Statement iv

5 Abstract This qualitative case study examines how students in an inner city high school engage with hip hop and how it informs their understanding of issues around race, identity and social agency. More specifically, the research focuses on three hip hop venues organized and led by students in the form of rap, dance and/or poetry slam events, that operate at school outside the formal curriculum and class timetable. Framed within sociocultural and poststructural perspectives on race, identity and social agency, this research examines how contemporary writings on popular culture, hip hop and critical pedagogy intersect and provide a useful lens for analyzing these hip hop venues. The study is grounded in an interpretive epistemology and qualitative approaches were used to gather data through individual and focus group interviews, observations and a collection of artefacts. The research reveals that in their discourse on hip hop, some students reproduced racial classification schemes, while others called into question their marginalization and enacted alternate identities.. Keywords: Hip hop; Secondary Language Arts curriculum; Canadian context; race; identity; social agency v

6 Dedication To my educational muses, Dr. Debbie Phelan, Dr. Anne Scholefield and Dr. June Beynon, for helping me tap into my English, teacher and academic identities. vi

7 Acknowledgements To my crew, Dr. Diane Dagenais, Dr. Ann Chinnery, Dr. Kelleen Toohey, Dr. Susan O Neill, Dr. Awad Ibrahim and Dr. Kumari Beck for helping to shape my thinking and the pages that follow. Diane, thank you for your guidance, insights, patience and care throughout this journey. Thank you for opening your mind, heart and home to me through these many years. Ann, many thanks for the supportive and encouraging way in which you interact with me and my work. Kelleen, my gratitude for your meticulous reading and your challenging me to make it better. To my internal examiner, Dr. O Neill, for your important role in helping me fine tune my thinking during the oral exam. To my external examiner, Dr. Ibrahim, for your collegiality an interest in the thesis. To Kumari, for chairing the exam and caring so well. To my homies, the students featured in the research, for sparking my curiosity and deepening my understanding. You have rapped, danced and spoken your way into my heart. To my posse, my teaching colleagues, for opening up your classroom doors and pedagogy to me. To Linda Hof, for capturing the oral exam so beautifully. To Mauvereen Walker, for meticulously guiding me through the process. To Joanie Wolfe, for sparking my fascination for formatting. To my home girl, Tasha Henry, for the calls, texts, Skypes and other gestures of encouragement, support and love. To my fly girl, Dr. Rhonda Philpott, for being the template of excellence. To my shorty, Denise Schellhase, for sharing our figured world. To my CFF, Sheila Hammond, for the mock defense and invaluable feedback. To my bro, Boris Chan, for your help and humour Brick Road. To my fam, Leang Hoat Kuoch and Kim Tran, for paving my educational Yellow vii

8 Table of Contents Approval... ii Partial Copyright Licence... iii Ethics Statement... iv Abstract... v Dedication... vi Acknowledgements... vii Table of Contents... viii List of Tables... x 1. Yo Hit It!: Introduction Whatcha Say?: Inquiry Line Em Up: Organization Ghetto Superstar: Moving from the Margins to the Centre What s the dillio?: Popular Culture / Pedagogy, Race and Hip Hop Throwback 1: Retrospective Reflection on Student Exchange Dats So Mainstream: Popular Culture and Pedagogy Theory Afrika Bambaataa: Hip Hop Theory Throwback 2: Retrospective Reflection on the Ja Incident In Living Color: Race Theory Common Dream: Hip Hop and Race Gimme the Low Down: Chapter Summary What s the 4-1-1?: Identity, Social Agency and Hip Hop Throwback 3: Retrospective Reflection on the Tetherball Chink Incident Frontin : Identity Theory Black Don t Crack: Hip Hop Identity Throwback 4: Retrospective Reflection on Papa s Pedagogy Fight the Power: Social Agency Theory Changes: Hip Hop and Social Change Gimme the Low Down: Chapter Summary Method Man: Research Context Dats My Shit: Interpretive Epistemology We Got a Situation Herre: Case Study Methodology My Hood and My Crib: The Mosaic High Community and School My Posse: The Research Participant Profiles Taggin the Homies and the Shawties: The Participant Recruitment Process Taggin the Groupies: Recruiting the Focus Group Participants Taggin the Slammers: Recruiting the Poetry Slam Participants Taggin the B-boys and B-girls: Recruiting the Dance Team Participants Taggin the Rappers: Recruiting the Rap Group Participants Taggin the Other Homies and Shawties: Recruiting the Other Participants Gimme the Low Down: Chapter Summary viii

9 5. In Da Streetz: Fieldwork Spittin Words: Interviewing Dawg We Gotta Talk Some Buziness: One-on-One Interview Roundin Up the Homies and Shawties: Focus Group Interview Got Ur Back: Observation The Bling: The Artefacts For Reals?: Data Analysis and Interpretation Gimme the Low Down: Chapter Summary Peep This!: Reproducing and Challenging Racial Identities Identity of the Oppressor and the Oppressed Identity of the Unfortunate and the Undesirable Identity of the Underrepresented and the Untapped Gimme the Low Down: Chapter Summary Check it Out!: Enacting Alternate Identities My Turf: Students Hip Hop Figured Worlds Access Denied The Mosaic Dance Team Speak Gimme the Low Down: Chapter Summary Bring it On!: Results, Recommendations and Reflections Sup?: Addressing the Inquiry Questions New Skool: Visions for Curricular Change And?: Future Studies That s a Rap: Concluding Comments References Appendices Appendix A. Participant Profile Questionnaire Appendix B. Interview Guiding Questions Appendix C. But I Did (Kalvonix Access Denied) Appendix D. Magnus Opus (Access Denied) Appendix E. The Bubble Tea Family (Speak) Appendix F. Hip Hop is MORE (AJO Speak) ix

10 List of Tables Table 4.1. Table 4.2. Table 4.3. Table 4.4. Table 4.5. Student research participants: General attributes (listed in alphabetical order) Student research participants: Cultural affiliations part A (listed in alphabetical order) Student research participants: Cultural affiliations part B (listed in alphabetical order) Teacher research participants: General attributes (listed in alphabetical order) Teacher research participants: Cultural affiliations (listed in alphabetical order) Table 5.1. Observation Record of Speak Table 5.2. Observation Record of the Mosaic Dance Team Table 5.3. Observation Record of Access Denied Table 5.4. List of Collected Artefacts and Documents x

11 1. Yo Hit It!: Introduction In hip hop, rather than using conventional English to communicate the beginning or introduction of something, the expression, Yo, hit it is often employed. Hip hop is music, rhythm, rhyme, dance, poetry, attitude, dress and even language. Hip hop vernacular is on one level a creation of a new youthful discourse, but it is also a challenge to the dominant culture s stranglehold on the English language. It does not want to be proper, orthodox, formal, standard nor respected English. For example, not capitalizing the h s in hip hop could be interpreted as poor grammar by traditionalists, but it could also be a conscious political statement by revolutionaries of language. Hip hop exercises both poetic and political license. Similarly, not capitalizing the words black and blackness throughout this document is a way of poking holes at the dominant discourse on proper practice in English writing conventions. Like belle hooks, who refuses to be enslaved by the conventions of the dominant culture, not capitalizing black and hip hop is my political stance here. In its original conception in urban centres in the United States in the 1970s, hip hop music offered a much needed venue for self and social expression for black people who were perpetually silenced by the white dominant culture (Abdullah, 2006). Through this socially conscious and politically charged genre of music, hip hop artists crafted poignant lyrics with catchy street beats that on one level allowed them to voice frustration, fear and anger over their history of oppression suffered at the hands of the dominant culture, while on another level permitted them to spread a powerful message of hope that positive social change could come to the black community (Boyd, 2002). However, the recent evolution of some contemporary hip hop music beginning in the late-1980s and early 1990s has seen much of the once socially conscious and politically progressive musical form reshaped into a more corporate driven, money-making music factory that pumps out millions of recordings filled with endorsements for materialism, violence, misogyny, sexism and homophobia (Dimitriadis, 2001). 1

12 In April 1991 I was first exposed to hip hop music and culture when I participated in a student exchange program between my Vancouver school and an inner city, allblack school in southwest Atlanta, Georgia. At Daniel McLaughlin Therrell High School, I was surrounded by the daily sounds, sights and attitudes of hip hop culture, where the music and the lifestyle were readily embraced and celebrated by the student population. It was their music, their history, their culture and their plight, pulsating from their ghetto blasters. This initial exposure to the power of hip hop piqued my interest back then and continued to do so many years after my stay in Atlanta. When I became a practicing Secondary Language Arts teacher in the British Columbia public school system in the late-1990s, I began informally observing the influence of hip hop on my students and started to wonder how this discourse could help to inform my practice and the curriculum. As I gained more experience and confidence in my teaching, I experimented with my pedagogy by bringing into the classroom the hip hop I was familiar with and listening to. I also encouraged my students to contribute to our study of poetry by sharing rap lyrics from their hip hop collection as well as writing their original raps in place of more traditional sonnets, ballads and haikus. Hip hop in my classroom back then was more of an appendix to the Language Arts curriculum rather than a promotion of critical consciousness about social issues. It was not until 2006, when I was seconded by Simon Fraser University to work with pre-service teachers, that I began a more academic exploration of hip hop. My position in the university s teacher education program involved supervising student teachers in an international teaching site and also afforded me another opportunity to observe hip hop in another setting similar to Atlanta, Georgia. It was in Trinidad and Tobago that I developed an even deeper level of understanding and appreciation for hip hop and its intersection with the country s history and culture. From speaking with some academics and a music instructor at the local University of the West Indies, as well as resident high school students who were studying hip hop in the classroom and other acquaintances I met during my stay, I learned about some of the rich history of music in Trinidad and Tobago and how central it is to their past and their present. In particular, Trinidad and Tobago s colonial beginnings and history of black slavery continue to influence its current socio-cultural-economic-political landscape, including the way many young people engage with hip hop. For the predominantly black population of Trinidad 2

13 and Tobago, hip hop not only speaks to the people s past struggle for independence from their white slave masters, it also voices their current battle to challenge the dominant white culture s control of the country s resources, employment and other opportunities. After the completion of my tenure in the Trinidad and Tobago position in 2008, I returned to my role as a Secondary Language Arts teacher in an inner-city designated school that I call Mosaic High in this thesis, in one of British Columbia s largest school districts. Although Trinidad and Tobago, and Atlanta are geographically and culturally distinct with a predominantly black population and a deep rooted tradition of hip hop unlike British Columbia, I did not have to look beyond my English classroom to see that many of my students, the majority of whom are not black, are just as enamoured and engaged with hip hop as their counterparts in the United States and the Caribbean. It was at Mosaic High that I paid closer attention to how my students engage with hip hop beyond just the lyrics they would bring to class during a poetry unit. I was also curious about the hip hop they did not believe would be considered acceptable in a formal school and classroom context. When I asked my students in 2009 to let me sample some of the hip hop blasting through their ipod earphones, the popular musical artists on their playlists were Tupac, T.I., T-Pain, Akon, 50 Cent, Kanye West, Lil Wayne, Flo Rider, Snoop Doggy Dog, Biggie Smalls, Notorious B.I.G. Nas, Eminem, Ice-T, Busta Rhymes, Method Man and many others with similar sounds, looks and attitudes. They were listening to the kind of music that the majority of youth in Atlanta and Trinidad and Tobago, as well as many parts of the world, are listening to. Hip hop is not only an American and African rooted phenomenon, it is global and local. The excerpts below represent a sampling of the lyrics from the students popular hip hop catalogue. I ll take you to the candy shop / I ll let you lick the lollipop / Go head girl, don t you stop / Keep going till you hit the spot ( Candy Shop 50 Cent) A young Nigga screams fuck the world and let em die / Behind tints tryna duck the world and smoking rie ( Fuck The World Lil Wayne) When I hit ya, I split you to the white meat / You swung on like you slumber right, you fell to the concrete / Your face, my feet, they meet, we re stompin ( Ready To Die Notorious B.I.G.) 3

14 My words are like a dagger with a jagged edge / That will stab you in the head / Whether you re a fag or lez / Or the homosex, hermaph, or a transa-vest / Pants or dress, hate fags? / The answer s yes ( Criminal Eminem) They say we are N-I Double G-E-R / We are much more / Still we chose to ignore / The obvious / Man this history don t acknowledge us / We was scholars long before colleges ( N.I.G.G.E.R. Nas) I see no changes / All I see is racist faces / Misplaced hate makes disgrace to races we under / I wonder what it takes to make this one better place ( Changes Tupac) These Canadian teenagers download this kind of music into their ipods, memorize the lyrics word-for-word and watch the corresponding music videos on Much Music or through Podcasts, Vevo and YouTube. They FaceBook, MySpace and Tweet about their favourite current tunes, sharing with their friends snippets of the lyrics to popular hip hop hits like the ones presented earlier. They purchase the apparel and paraphernalia they see in the videos and strut the school halls, posing and mimicking the gestures, enunciations and attitudes of their musical idols, all the while spitting out lyrics to Candy Shop, Fuck The World, Ready To Die, Criminal, N.I.G.G.E.R., and Changes Whatcha Say?: Inquiry Whatcha Say? is urban vernacular for What did you say? which is a shorthand expression used by an individual when inquiring about something for clarification and understanding. My research aims at better understanding how students in a Canadian school setting engage with hip hop and how this impacts their perceptions of the world. Although the scholarship on hip hop and critical pedagogy has been growing in the past ten years, most of the current studies are from an American viewpoint. The aims of this research are to contribute to the relatively new field of the study of hip hop and critical pedagogy from a Canadian perspective by tapping into the experiences and insights of inner-city students who embrace this musical discourse in their daily lives. Given that in my Master s thesis I examined students response to humour and the discourse in popular culture on race, identity and social agency, I began to wonder 4

15 how hip hop is informing young people s understanding of these three constructs. In this study, I expand on my previous research by asking the following questions: How do students engage with hip hop discourse? How does their engagement inform their understanding of race, identity and social agency? And how can students engagement with hip hop discourse help make the Secondary Language Arts curriculum more inclusive and relevant? To help answer the above questions, I conducted a qualitative study of secondary school aged students engagement with hip hop at Mosaic High. Using a case study methodology, I investigated how a particular group of students at Mosaic High engages with hip hop outside the formal curriculum and after the school bell, but within the confines of the school walls. Specifically I studied three hip hop influenced venues at Mosaic High: (a) Speak [the school Poetry Slam event], (b) the Mosaic High Dance Team and, (c) Access Denied [the school rap group]. Data were collected through observations, artefact collection and individual interviews. Additionally, I assembled a focus group comprised of students interested in delving deeper into issues about hip hop and collected data from these group interviews. Furthermore, a small group of students, who was not part of the focus group nor affiliated with one of the hip hop venues at Mosaic High but expressed interest in participating in the research was also individually interviewed. Finally, a number of teachers at Mosaic High who were extensively involved in supporting and sponsoring the students hip hop initiatives were also individually interviewed for the study Line Em Up: Organization Line em up essentially means putting things in order so that one can approach a task in a more organized and methodical way. This research consists of eight chapters, including this introduction chapter. The following section outlines and previews the contents of each chapter, describing the 5

16 literature review, methodology, data analysis and interpretation, and research findings and recommendations. Chapters 2 and 3 will review the literature that theoretically grounds the research. In particular Chapter 2 focuses on the first set of two central research themes: popular culture/pedagogy and race, and their intersection with hip hop. Here I am interested in what theorists have to say about popular culture and education. I am also interested in the sociocultural phenomenon of hip hop, from its origins in Africa and urban American centres to its current place in youth popular culture and academic discourse. Since the discourse of race is fundamental to hip hop, the second part of Chapter 2 will explore the dimensions of race from a number of perspectives. I further ground my theoretical conception of race in a contemporary, Canadian and education perspective by concentrating on issues around dominant culture, classification, normalization and marginalization. The final section of Chapter 2 moves from conceptualizing race to the discourse of race found in hip hop. In Chapter 3, I introduce the second set of central research themes: identity and social agency, and their connection with hip hop. I look at how identity is understood from a sociocultural perspective. I continue the chapter by exploring how identity construction operates in hip hop discourse. The second half of Chapter 3 concludes examines the final central research theme of social agency and how it is conceptualized by a number of theorists. I conclude with a discussion on what writers have to say about hip hop and social agency. Chapters 4 and 5 explain the research methodology. In Chapter 4, I situate the research in an interpretive epistemology and explain why I chose to pursue a qualitative research design. I then explain my use of case study methodology. I conclude by describing the research site and profiling the research participants. Specifically I detail how the participants were recruited for the focus group and individual interviews. As well I describe the three hip hop venues at Mosaic High (Speak, the Mosaic High Dance Team & Access Denied), including the particular participants directly connected with each site. I conclude by discussing where additional data from other one-on-one interviews were collected. 6

17 Chapter 5 explains the fieldwork portion of the research by describing the data collection strategies of individual interviews, focus group interviews, observations and artefact collections. I conclude with thoughts on data analysis, interpretation and verification. Chapters 6 and 7 centre on data presentation, analysis and interpretation. In Chapter 6 I interpret the research participants perspectives on race, identity and hip hop. Specifically, I look at how they understand how racial identities operate in hip hop and at their school. In Chapter 7, I conclude on the students understanding of identity, social agency and hip hop. I examine how they enact alternate identities in their hip hop influenced venues at Mosaic High. The research concludes with Chapter 8, in which I discuss results, as well as my reflections and recommendations Ghetto Superstar: Moving from the Margins to the Centre Ghetto Superstar was a big hip hop hit in 1998 featuring American rappers Pras and Ol Dirty Bastard, as well as Mya on backup vocals. In the music video, a white politician s prosthetic face is ripped off to reveal the black rapper Pras. Prior to Obama s presidency, this music video satirizes the notion that there could never be a black president. The song was featured on the soundtrack to the political satire, Bulworth, a movie about a politician who connects with black voters and the hip hop culture. The movie, song and accompanying video are all about flipping the dominant cultural order upside down. Whereas the word ghetto tends to suggest an undesirable, uncivilized, violent, poverty stricken, drug infested and black populated urban region, the oxymoronic Ghetto Superstar is an affirmation that even the most marginalized people can rise to the top. I conclude my introduction here by reflecting on my own experiences of being a new immigrant to Canada trying to negotiate the complex expectations of a dominant culture. Specifically, I will also focus on what it means to a marginalized student who enters an education system and learns a curriculum that does not speak authentically to his identity. 7

18 During the aftermath of the Vietnam War, as my parents re-evaluated their place and purpose after the fall of Saigon in a new Ho Chi Minh City, they realized that it was not a place they wanted to raise their three young children. So they sold their prospering hair salon business, paid the hefty government duties, bid their farewells to family and friends, and embarked on a journey to a new land they believed would bring their children opportunities and happiness not possible in their homeland. As they made the harrowing boat trip with other refugees, they encountered atrocities and endured unimaginable injustices. Yet they were resolved in their decision when they looked into their children s eyes. They held onto their faith, as they awaited sponsorship in an unsanitary Indonesian refugee camp, cramped among the sea of people hoping for the same. My father reminisces about how Switzerland, Hong Kong, France and the United States all offered us a new home. He proudly remembers rejecting these offers because he was holding out for Canada, a place he heard would embrace people from developing parts of the world and provide the best formal education for his children. When ten church families from a small fishing town in Campbell River opened their hearts and wallets to our cause, my family and I found ourselves in a new land that while opening its door with one hand, closed it with the other. We arrived in a land where people did not speak our language, understand our culture nor celebrate our traditions. They did not seem to want to understand our ways; they were more concerned that we learn their ways. This message was most apparent and reinforced in our formal Canadian schooling. Inside and outside the school, I did not possess the same social, economic, political nor cultural capital of my white peers, some of whom took advantage of their privilege with their racist taunts and acts. My sisters and I had to navigate through the hallways, the curricula and education system that did not reflect who we were and what we brought to school. I was educated predominantly in a system that positioned me as an outsider. I struggled to learn by myself both the implicit and explicit rules of power in the institution of education (Delpit, 1988). Greene (1993) writes about the detrimental effects of this delegitimization of the self in education and the implications for students: If the human being is demeaned, if her or his family is delegitimized, crucial rights are being trampled on. This is partly because persons marked as unworthy are unlikely to feel good enough to pose the 8

19 questions in which learning begins, unlikely to experience whatever curriculum is presented as relevant to their being in the world. (p. 212) I quickly discovered that if I failed to comprehend the complex dominant sociocultural and political subtleties and nuances naturally understood by my white peers, I would continue to be made the other, shut out of full participation inside and outside of the school walls. When I conceptualize the process of othering in the curriculum, I do not envision developing a curriculum that continues to exclude, isolate, alienate or marginalize those already outside of the dominant culture. Rather, my understanding of othering in the curriculum is to consciously and critically approach, conceptualize, design and develop curriculum from perspectives other than just perpetuating the privilege of the dominant culture. The word other, in this context of othering, is a reclaiming of the traditionally exclusionary connotation and reinterpreting it in an inclusionary way in regards to curriculum development. An other curriculum values an appreciation that other minds can share their own different beliefs and theories, (Rinaldi, 2006, p. 205). Thus, it is essential that traditionally marginalized voices not only actively participate in the developing of an other curriculum, but most importantly, they strive to re-design curriculum that addresses the unique needs of the ever changing and diverse student population outside the mainstream cultural school group. Ball and Pence (2006), in their writing on Indigenous Education, describe a meaningful curriculum as one that affirms students identities and experiences; and classroom processes that empower students to be self-directed (p. 48). Thus, it is imperative to have the student voices in this research play an important role in bringing about change to their learning environments and conditions. What an other curriculum is not, however, is a Eurocentric dominated perspective of seeing the world, where other perspectives outside the perceived European norms are marginalized, trivialized and/or delegitimized. Supporters of a Eurocentric curriculum, maintain a monological interpretation of culture and, as such, advocate a curricular approach that is deeply informed by several ideological assumptions. First, curricular monologists conceptualize culture and 9

20 identity as consisting of a clearly demarcated set of lived and commodified cultural forms and practices specific to particular groups. These practices are defined as forms of property and are seen as constituting the totality of group capacity and definition. Second, mainstream theorists motivated by the manipulation of this model of culture and identity propose that curriculum reform should take the form of content addition to the dominant Eurocentric core curriculum, adding selectively from the stock of knowledge and experiences associated with minority groups. Third, monologists suggest that only the members of a given minority group are fully competent to understand the knowledge and the experiences pertinent to that particular group. (McCarthy, Giardina, Harewood & Park, 2003, p. 7) Dominant cultural crusaders such as Ravitch (2002) and Hirsch (1991), in their plea for educators to return to core curricular content, not only see curriculum through these monological lenses, but also fail to problematize how such limited vision on curriculum development and implementation will detrimentally affect those who are outside the Eurocentric curriculum s pedagogical reach. In her defensive response to those who want to shake up the curriculum a little too much for her privileged taste, Ravitch rhetorically asks, Should we allow our cultural heritage to be hijacked by a handful of self-righteous pedagogical sensors? (p. 7). This exclusionary way of envisioning curriculum harmfully affects students whose experiences, backgrounds, cultures, etc. are absent from the exclusive European canon. An other curriculum is, however, similar to what Boler (2001) calls affirmative action pedagogy, which she describes as, a pedagogy that ensures critical analysis within higher education classrooms of any expression of racism, homophobia, anti-semitism, or sexism, for example. An affirmative action pedagogy seeks to ensure that we bear witness to marginalized voices in our classrooms, even at the minor cost of limiting dominant voices. (p. 321) Even though Boler speaks from a post secondary perspective, the ideals of her affirmative action pedagogy can certainly apply to the re-conceptualization of a secondary school curriculum. Boler identifies the classroom setting as one of the very few public arenas where marginalized voices can respond and be heard (p. 322). An other curriculum challenges the centralizing and regulatory role of textbook adoptions, patterns of textual representation, function of standardized testing, and use of 10

21 predetermined curricular packages (Buras, 1999, p. 6) that continue to silence student voices. An other curriculum recognizes the savagery, the brutal marginalizations, the structured silences, the imposed invisibility so present all around (Greene, 1993, p. 211). In other words, an other curriculum strives to create more room and opportunities for students who have been traditionally shut out of the dominant discourse a chance to engage actively and directly with classroom learning that is pedagogically sensitive, culturally relevant and socially just. It is my hope that by pursuing a study to understand how students engage with and make meaning of hip hop in their informal curriculum, I will be able to learn how the Secondary Language Arts curriculum can speak more meaningfully to the student I was and more importantly, to the students I teach. 11

22 2. What s the dillio?: Popular Culture / Pedagogy, Race and Hip Hop The phrase, What s the dillio is an old skool hip hop term meaning, what s the deal what s up, what s going on or what s happening. Essentially, the phrase is used to gain information about the most important aspects of something. This first of two literature review chapters outlines the theoretical framework that grounds my research, methodology, data analysis and interpretation. This chapter is divided into two central themes: (a) popular culture and pedagogy theory, and (b) race theory. Each theme is also explored as it intersects with hip hop discourses. In the first section, I focus on the role of popular culture and its relevance in education. In particular, I reference theorists such as Ibrahim (2004), McLaren (2003), Giroux (1996) and Apple (1993) who argue that pedagogical possibilities can be found in the popular culture of youth in schools. This leads to the examination of the phenomenon of hip hop in current popular culture. Referencing the studies of Chang (2013), Terkourafi (2010), Abdullah (2006), Dimitriadis (2001) and others, I trace the development of hip hop from its origins as a means for marginalized blacks to voice their discontent over the social injustices they face to the more commercially driven hip hop of today. In the second section, I examine theories focusing on race from a contemporary sociocultural perspective, with an emphasis on researchers who speak to pedagogy, such as Ghosh and Abdi (2004), James (2003), Yon (2000) and Dei (1996). In framing race as a social construct shaped by authority, I discuss issues of power, privilege, classification, normalization and marginalization. The works of Foucault (1997) and Bakhtin (1981) help in shaping some of these fundamental concepts around race. This is followed by a closer analysis of how race operates in hip hop discourse. Here, I 12

23 reference Low (2011), Terkourafi (2010), Abdullah (2006), and Dimitriadis (2001) work, chronicling how the development of hip hop was and continues to be intimately interconnected with, influenced by and responsive to race discourses Throwback 1: Retrospective Reflection on Student Exchange Throwback is urban vernacular referencing something from the past. This reminiscence is usually prompted by something in the present that stirs retrospection as well as introspection in an individual. The various throwbacks throughout this chapter as well as the following chapter, help to introduce and ground the theories that will be discussed as they interconnect with my history and lived experiences. Yo homie, sup? These foreign words greeted my ears as I wandered through the overcrowded halls of Therrell High School in the Fulton County of Atlanta, Georgia. I navigated through the corridors of colourfully adorned students wearing MC Hammer style baggy pants, over-sized Atlanta Hawks jerseys and Fresh Prince of Bel-Air neon high top sneakers and backward caps. I am drawn to the addictive beats and bass of LL Cool J s Mama Said Knock You Out pumping out of a ghetto blaster as a group of students break dance in the centre of a make-shift stage formed by a small crowd of cheering peers. As well, the acapella crooning of Boyz II Men s Motown Philly and the rapping of Public Enemy s Fight the Power permeated through this urban school and black youth culture that were all new to me Dats So Mainstream: Popular Culture and Pedagogy Theory Dats so mainstream communicates the idea that something or someone has become too popular or over-saturated within the general public consciousness. The first cross-over hip hop song to make a significant impact on American white radio stations was the smash hit Rapper s Delight by the Sugarhill Gang in the 1970s. Connoisseurs of hip hop often distinguish underground hip hop, which is less accessible and less 13

24 marketable, from mainstream hip hop, which is more commercial and appeals to a broader demographic group. McLaren (2003) points out that there is a tendency to dichotomize culture into high and low forms, the former for the traditional academic elites while the latter for the uneducated masses (p. 214). Bekerman (2008) argues that this binary falsely implies that those well versed in the world of popular culture are there because they lack the intellectual rigour required in an educated culture. However, Farber, Provenzo and Holm (1994) are adamant that educational stakeholders, from students, teachers and administrators, to policymakers and parents must understand that modern day schooling is conditioned by sociocultural context in which schooling is understood, a context that is in turn mediated by powerful forms of popular culture (p. 1). Therefore, argues Hanley (2008), studying popular culture in formal school curricula will help educators to better understand the extent to which popular cultural discourses impact student consciousness. There seems to be two predominant views in regards to popular culture and education. On one side are more traditional educators who frown upon the world of popular culture and see their classrooms as a sanctuary from the corrupt influences of mass media. On the other side are more progressive educators who recognize that students are already intimately connected to the world of popular culture and thus schools need to incorporate it into the curriculum. Within this latter group, there is also another divide. Some teachers draw on popular culture and incorporate it in their classroom as a way to engage their students but they do not necessarily help their students scrutinize and problematize the more contentious aspects of it. Other teachers believe that it is important to assist their students in critically recognizing popular culture s illusory trappings, as well as attempt to understand why young people are so drawn to it in the first place. My research is aligned with this latter perspective on popular culture and pedagogy. I focus on hip hop because it is currently the most popular musical form for many young people. As well, I am curious about the untapped pedagogical possibilities in hip hop and how understanding students engagement with it can help to revision the Secondary Language Arts curriculum in a way that speaks more meaningfully to the students learning. In this section of the chapter, I attend to theorists who examine intersections of scholarship on popular culture and pedagogy. In particular, 14

25 I look at how they conceptualize students experiences inside and outside the school as a way to encourage more critical thought and social consciousness in young people. Critical pedagogy theorists Giroux (1996) and Apple (1993) are two prominent scholars who work on issues related to popular culture and education. Apple argues that Popular culture is one of the most important sites where the construction of our everyday lives can be examined (p. 5). Both Giroux and Apple advocate for education that is informed and influenced by popular culture because they believe that school curricula must meaningfully reflect the immediate experiences and everyday realities of the students they are supposed to serve. Simply put, they suggest that when curricula are relevant, contemporary and engaging, more meaningful learning will occur. Apple and Giroux also highlight the need to move beyond examining and reflecting on the formal curriculum, but consider also the informal curriculum of students outside the classroom, away from textbooks and removed from standardized tests. They argue that the formal curriculum, or what Apple terms the often unquestioned official knowledge, must be recognized as preferred, normalized and standardized over other forms of knowledge. Birchall (2006) devotes much of her analysis of popular culture to emphasizing that it is based on knowledge that is worthy of academic pursuit. Like Giroux (1996) and Apple (1993), she argues that knowledge deriving from popular culture cannot be dismissed readily nor treated with distain. Birchall calls marginalized knowledge those forms of knowing considered unworthy, illegitimate and unofficial, which she contends provide insights into sociocultural processes: the emphasis in cultural studies on those knowledges produced by historically marginalized or disenfranchised groups (whether through their race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity and so on) have produced valuable contributions to our understanding of the relationship between knowledge, identity, and nationhood. (p. 18) Birchall sees education as an arena in which the process of legitimizing forms of marginalized knowledge can occur. She argues that Work in education (particularly the sociology of curriculum) is concerned not only with a democratic ideal of education (how to empower via knowledge transmission) but the idea that power resides in the authority 15

26 to dictate what knowledge is (p. 15). Educators must ask, what is considered credible knowledge in the first place? Who gets to decide what is worthy of being taught in the classroom, as well as what is being excluded from the formal curriculum? Holtzman (2000) also sees the value of extracting knowledge from the world of popular culture because she argues that some youth who are immersed in this world tend to disengage from critical thought. In her study, Holtzman analyzes how popular film, television and music teach young people about race, class, gender and sexual orientation. She advocates for a need to examine critically the world of popular culture, regardless of how superficial it may seem: What is challenging about identifying the signs and reflection of dominant culture in popular media is that most of us have been so thoroughly immersed in popular culture that its messages and values seem normal to us as well. We are looking to be entertained primarily, not to analyze the way we are being socialized. (p. 212) Rather than using popular culture to simply hook students into curricula materials, which traditionally has been the case in education, Callahan (2004) proposes a constructivist approach to critical pedagogy where students and teachers help each other as co-investigators of culture (p. 52). More often than not, students knowledge of popular culture is broader than their teachers understanding of it, which leads some educators to shy away from it, argues Callahan. However, as Callahan suggests, because students feel a sense of competence and passion for the world of popular culture, their interest in the topic can act as a catalyst for complex thinking (p. 55). Ibrahim (2004) also sees popular culture as not only a place where youth are socialized and construct identities related specifically to race and gender, but also as a place where their imagined concepts of self can be envisioned and explored. Ibrahim s interest in the intersection of popular culture and pedagogy leads him to ask a number of critical questions. He is concerned that even though youth identities have been shown to be influenced by popular culture, formal education often devalues popular culture s impact and worth, which leads him to wonder about the implications this has for the youth who like this art form. Furthermore, Ibrahim is not only interested in young people s consumption of popular culture, he is also curious about their production of it. 16

27 Writings on popular culture and curriculum more often speak to the consumption rather than the production of it. Ibrahim sees both of them as equally important for understanding how youth engage with identity construction. Thus he asks, how can critical educators bring student-based and student-produced knowledge into the classroom, not to be consumed but rather to be critically engaged, deconstructed? (p. 116). He suggests that educators need to walk a fine line between legitimizing students experiences with popular culture while at the same time helping them to be critical about their engagement with it. For example, Ibrahim argues that hip hop is a youth cultural space embodying problematic dominant cultural discourses as well as functioning as a subterranean subversion (p. 118). Chavez and Soep (2005), in their study of how youth engage with popular media, would agree with Ibrahim about the importance of understanding what young people produce from their engagement and relationship with popular culture: We must know something about how young people are creating media in their own personal spaces and peer groups, often outside the awareness of adults, and in some cases against the wishes of their parents. (pp ) Whether it be through their production of music beats, rap lyrics or dance choreography, much can be learned about how young people engage with popular culture Afrika Bambaataa: Hip Hop Theory Afrika Bambaataa, one of the original Bronx DJs, is respectfully known in the black music community as the Grandfather of hip hop because he was instrumental in developing the hip hop movement and has extensive experience with this urban musical form. His vast knowledge of its development, growth and evolution makes him a hip hop historian, and thus the titling of this section pays homage to him through what the hip hop community would call a shout-out. Here, the focus will be on illuminating the development of hip hop, from its old skool roots to its current place in mainstream popular consciousness. 17

28 The study of hip hop as credible academic inquiry has only gained scholarly support since the early 1990s (Sarkar, 2008). In fact, as Abdullah (2006) explains, Hip Hop is often relegated as the faddish ranting of misguided urban youth by mainstream critics and academicians (p. 465). Giroux (1996) is not impressed with hip hop because of what he sees as a promotion of violence, misogyny and general negativity in youth culture, which is why he advocates the need to study it. Not only is hip hop scholarship being recognized more by the academy, according to Petchauer (2007), it has also been enthusiastically embraced by education in the past decade. Ladson-Billings and Donnor (2005) not only state that there is a need for an academic treatment of hip hop, but they go as far as warning that scholars who ignore this sociocultural phenomenon are out of touch and irrelevant to everyday lives of people engaged in social justice (p. 294). Hip hop first gained cultural popularity and notoriety in America, and still continues to attract a great following with its influence spreading across the world, where vibrant hip hop hubs can be found all over Europe, Asia, Australia particularly in Germany, France and Japan (Bennett, 2001), and even in Quebec (Sarkar & Allen, 2007) and Toronto, Canada (Ibrahim 1999). Global hip hop trotter Terkourafi (2010), who was first introduced to hip hop in the city of Heraklion, Greece, compiled a collection of scholarly writings on hip hop from a German, French, Egyptian, Hungarian, Korean and Norwegian perspective. Here, I will define what constitutes hip hop music from a number of perspectives. Dimitriadis (2001) argues that phenomena from popular culture are never static nor ahistorical, and that in order to understand a popular culture phenomenon, such as hip hop, we need to trace its development to fully appreciate its complexity. Dimitriadis adds that such an approach to examining hip hop enables us to better understand how issues around race, class, gender, identity and social activism are constructed in the production and consumption of hip hop texts and performances. This illumination allows for opening up spaces for resistance and negotiation (Dimitriadis, 2001, p. 12). Thus, the literature review that follows will also historically contextualize the hip hop movement, development and evolution to provide a clearer picture of how it has become the popular cultural phenomenon it is today. Abdullah (2006) explains that at its core hip hop consists of three major components. First is rap music, which involves MCing and DJing. MCing is a form of clever word playing, involving the use of techniques such as multisyllabic rhymes, 18

29 unconventional rhymes, internal rhymes, similes, metaphors and other figurative and literary devices. Rapping is commonly believed to have been imported from Jamaican immigrants living in New York urban areas in the 1970s. Essentially, MCing is another word for rapping. DJing, or disc jockeying, is a person selecting and coordinating the music to be played to an audience. In hip hop, DJing often involves DJs using turntables to scratch beats to accompany the music being played. Clive Hercules Campbell, otherwise known as Kool Herc, is credited for first experimenting with beats involving turntables, while Theodore Grand Wizard Livingstone serendipitously discovered scratching, the art of creating sounds by rhythmically moving a vinyl record back and forth on a record player turntable. Abdullah (2006) also adds that the music is complemented with breakdancing, also referred to as Breaking or B-boying, which still continues to be a popular form of street dancing with today s youth. Breakdancing was originally created and developed in conjunction with the hip hop movement, but only became mainstream in the early 1980s. The connotation behind the word breaking suggests a style of dancing that encourages excitement, energy as well as breaking from the mode of traditional dance. The edgy, urban and acrobatic dance moves consist of a number of aggressive, aerial and contorting spins and poses to the beats of hip hop music. Rather than confined to traditional dance halls, the dancers, called B-boys and B-girls, exhibited and performed their often spontaneous and improvised breakdancing routines on some of the meanest streets and sidewalks of New York and other major cities. The third major component rounding out the hip hop trinity is graffiti. While Bboying encompasses the dance element and MCing and DJing provide the audio components, graffiti offers the visual representation of hip hop. Graffiti, also known as tagging and aerosol art, is a form of urban visual expression that is often illegally plastered on public spaces, such as office buildings, park benches, street signs, bus shelters, and so on. It is believed that the earliest form of graffiti appeared in the 1960s in the form of black marker tagging by a teenager known as Taki 183, who peppered his insignia throughout New York. But during the next forty years, graffiti became more elaborate, taking the form of full sized murals with intricate and colourful letterings and urban inspired images. Even though graffiti has gained some credibility within the art world, it continues to proudly maintain its outlaw art status. The artwork appears often 19